2019 10Best Cars
Where many see cars as basic transportation or a monthly payment, we instead see a personality鈥攁 statement about our identity, our desires, our priorities. Traditional cars are no longer the mainstream choice, having lost ground to a growing field of higher-riding vehicles. But whereas trucks, crossovers, and SUVs used to express something special about their owners鈥攖hat they were rugged, adventurous, or dog-owning鈥攃ars are increasingly powerful statements about the person behind the wheel. Most people would be better off in a crossover. But commit to driving a car and you stand firm against the great teeming tide of conformity. Park one of our 10Best Cars in your driveway, however, and you plant both feet in the enthusiast camp. Your id will applaud, but so, too, will the other parts of your psyche. Because 10Best Cars are not only full of personality and fun to drive, they also deliver on their missions, with exacting engineering. 90,000, newly raised to account for rising transaction prices.
Are you what you drive, or do you drive what you are? If the all-steroid automotive Olympics were a thing, the 2019 BMW M2 Competition would be heavily favored in the flyweight class, as Munich's smallest and highest-strung speed freak bulges and bristles like a Little Hercules. Supplanting the 365-hp N55 turbocharged inline-six that powered last year's M2 is the fabulous S55, a twin-turbocharged inline-six harvested from the M4 and detuned in this application to 405 horsepower. The mill is linear in its delivery, ripping all the way to the 7600-rpm redline. In a dual-clutch-equipped model, the snort to 60 mph happens in four seconds flat, and the quarter-mile whizzes by in 12.4鈥攇ains of 0.1 and 0.3 second, respectively, over last year's car. Tucked into the 19-inch forged wheels are massive iron rotors gripped by larger calipers than the old M2's and a brake pedal that remains firmer than our commitment to the manual transmission.
To compensate for the slightly increased mass, BMW revised the spring rates, dampers, and anti-roll-bar tuning to provide a noticeably more compliant and less jarring ride. And although the M2's steering isn't as communicative as we'd like, the little coupe is eager to turn in and its reflexes are even sharper thanks to additional front-end bracing. And that's the genius of the M2 Competition. Rather than overcompensating for its pint-sized proportions by being a loudmouthed hothead, it turns explosive power and a well-balanced chassis into euphoric exercise. Corvettes don't suffer traffic gladly, and that's only partially the Corvette's problem. Driving one in a world of speed limits and inattentive Prius drivers requires major restraint. Fight the temptation and both the Grand Sport and Z06 are safe for daily use, providing shockingly composed ride quality for something that will pull more than 1.00 g. Quiet the active exhaust and you can unwind huge distances with blissful ease.
We put both of them on our list this year because they represent the best balance of performance and price in the Corvette universe. 66,590 Grand Sport pairs the body and wide-tire chassis of the supercharged Corvettes with the 460-hp powertrain of the base car. 10,000 it costs over the standard-issue Corvette. On track, either car will hold even the most skilled driver's attention. And the harder you push, the more the respect grows. But even around our 10Best street route there's joy in whomping around an empty set of curves at sane speeds, using but a tiny slice of the available grip. Still, there's no ignoring that the Corvette is a lot of car for public roads, but the fact that we can complain about unusable performance speaks to the Corvette's value. It delivers supercar or near-supercar numbers at merely a sports-car price. For 2019, the Mustang GT again makes hay, trampling into the spot vacated by the Camaro, whose transcendent chassis failed to prop up its awful outward visibility, practicality, and looks in the face of withering 10Best competition.
